Part 1 ‘Shakespeare and the Nature of Man’ by Theodore Spencer.
Part 1: Theodore Spencer’s Shakespeare and the Nature of Man (1942) is a seminal work that explores how Shakespeare’s plays reflect and engage with the evolving philosophical and psychological understanding of human nature in the Renaissance. The central theme of Spencer’s book is the evolution of Shakespeare’s conception of human nature, seen against the backdrop of shifting Renaissance worldviews—from medieval scholasticism to humanist individualism.
Part 2: Now considering this arc and development and the now quite acceptable view that Shakespeare was Edward de Verne, who travelled to Italy and was certainly influenced deeply by the culture. The chronology of his writing is certainly speculative and based only on when the plays were produced and either staged or obtained for publication. So, we can speculate how de Vere was affected by his travels and also the times and how that evolved his own view.
Main Theme
Spencer argues that Shakespeare’s plays show a progressive deepening and transformation of the idea of man—from a creature defined by order and hierarchy (medieval worldview) to a more complex, internally conflicted being (Renaissance humanism). Shakespeare’s vision, according to Spencer, is not static but evolves in response to the changing intellectual climate of his time.
Spencer’s Philosophy in the Book
- Man in an Ordered Universe
Spencer begins by examining the medieval conception of the universe—a divinely ordained, hierarchical cosmos in which everything had its place (Great Chain of Being). Early Shakespeare plays, like Richard II, reflect this worldview: disorder in the human realm (political or personal) mirrors or disrupts cosmic harmony.
In this model, the self is not autonomous—it is embedded in a divine structure. Sin or misbehavior is seen as rebellion against order.
- The Emergence of Human Complexity
As the Renaissance deepened, the breakdown of the old metaphysical certainties (due to scientific inquiry, exploration, religious upheaval, and philosophical skepticism) brought forth a new image of man—more autonomous, self-aware, and conflicted.
Spencer sees Shakespeare’s middle-period plays (Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth) as dramatizing this shift. Here, man is no longer a passive part of a divine order but an active, self-questioning being, burdened with choice, doubt, and the consequences of action.
Hamlet’s introspection, Lear’s descent into madness, Macbeth’s ambition—all become psychological explorations of man struggling with freedom and inner division.
Spencer suggests that Shakespeare anticipated modern existential concerns, particularly:
- The problem of evil and guilt
- The isolation of the individual
- The limits of reason and the ambiguity of appearances
- Toward a Reconciliation
In his later plays (especially the romances, like The Tempest, Cymbeline, and The Winter’s Tale), Spencer sees Shakespeare moving toward a qualified reconciliation—a new vision in which forgiveness, renewal, and grace re-enter the frame.
This is not a return to the rigid medieval order, but a more nuanced, humanistic affirmation of life, one that acknowledges suffering, fallibility, and fragmentation but also gestures toward healing, mystery, and renewal.
Prospero’s final renunciation of power in The Tempest is not a rejection of reason or selfhood, but a movement toward mercy and harmony—through recognition of human limits.
Summary of Spencer’s View
Theodore Spencer’s philosophical position can be summarized as follows:
- Shakespeare’s plays mirror a historical shift in the understanding of man—from an ordered, hierarchical view to a more existentially complex one.
- Human nature is portrayed not as fixed but as emergent, full of inner tensions, moral ambiguity, and existential challenge.
- Yet, Shakespeare is not a nihilist; his later work suggests a spiritual and imaginative possibility of redemption—not through dogma, but through human recognition, suffering, and love.
Great—let’s explore how Theodore Spencer traces the evolution of Shakespeare’s vision of human nature through specific plays, illustrating key phases in this philosophical arc.
- Early Phase: Man in a Cosmic Order
Key Play: Richard II
Worldview:
- Rooted in the medieval cosmology—the Great Chain of Being, divine right of kings, natural order.
- Humans are part of a structured hierarchy; misbehavior disrupts cosmic and social harmony.
Character Focus: Richard II
- Richard sees himself as divinely appointed, even as his personal flaws (vanity, indecisiveness) bring about chaos.
- His fall is not only political but cosmic—he disrupts the harmony of the world by failing in his sacred role.
- Spencer reads this as an expression of the fragility of inherited metaphysical structures.
This is a world where identity and meaning are still largely externally given—by birth, status, and divine order.
- Middle Phase: The Birth of Psychological Complexity
Shakespeare begins to explore man as internally divided, torn between reason, emotion, will, and perception. The plays reflect Renaissance anxiety—freedom and self-awareness now carry existential weight.
- Hamlet
Worldview:
- The old order (the ghost, revenge ethics, divine justice) clashes with modern doubt and psychological introspection.
Character Focus: Hamlet
- Torn between action and reflection, ethics and vengeance, reason and feeling.
- Hamlet’s soliloquies are unprecedented interior explorations in drama: “To be or not to be…” is a direct engagement with existential despair.
- Spencer sees Hamlet as a new kind of man, deeply modern—alienated, ironic, and searching for meaning in a world where certainty has collapsed.
The old categories no longer hold. Man must invent meaning—or suffer from its absence.
- Othello
Character Focus: Othello, Iago
- Othello, though noble, is undone by inner doubt and emotional vulnerability.
- Iago becomes the embodiment of rational malice—his manipulation shows how human reason, untethered from moral structure, can destroy.
Spencer sees this as a world where traditional virtues (honor, reason, love) no longer guarantee stability.
- King Lear
Worldview:
- The most radical rupture of old order and meaning.
- Nature itself is hostile or indifferent. The gods are “silent,” perhaps “cruel.”
Character Focus: Lear, Gloucester
- Lear’s journey is a stripping-away: of power, illusion, pride.
- What’s revealed is human vulnerability, dependence, love, madness.
- Gloucester’s blinding becomes a literal metaphor for the loss of insight.
Here Spencer sees the full exposure of man in a broken cosmos: not noble because of divine order, but human in suffering, in frailty, and in the fragile capacity for love.
- Later Phase: Toward Reconciliation and Grace
In the final plays, Spencer observes a subtle shift toward regeneration, forgiveness, and mystery. It’s not a return to certainty, but a movement toward acceptance, humility, and spiritual renewal.
- The Winter’s Tale
Character Focus: Leontes, Hermione, Perdita
- Leontes’ irrational jealousy nearly destroys his family and kingdom.
- After years of suffering, a miraculous restoration occurs—but not without cost.
- Hermione’s statue “comes to life,” symbolizing not just return, but transformation through time, grief, and repentance.
Spencer sees here a belief in human fallibility, but also in the possibility of grace—earned not by position or logic, but by openness, humility, and love.
- The Tempest
Character Focus: Prospero
- Prospero begins as a figure of power and control—almost godlike—but chooses forgiveness over vengeance.
- His final act is to relinquish his magic, to “drown his book”—a gesture of human limitation and grace.
This is not Shakespeare retreating to old certainties but arriving at a new wisdom: power is less than mercy, knowledge is less than love, and control is less than freedom.
Spencer’s Conclusion
Through this arc—from Richard II to The Tempest—Spencer sees Shakespeare as dramatizing the renaissance of the soul:
- From external order to inner conflict,
- From divinely structured roles to existential freedom and fallibility,
- From psychological fragmentation to a spiritualized humanism,
- From knowing to forgiving,
- From order enforced to grace discovered.
Part 2 Edward de Vere (17th Earl of Oxford)
If we consider The Shakespearean arc, as outlined by Spencer, in light of de Vere’s life, travels, and intellectual milieu, the philosophical development takes on even deeper resonance—inflected by direct continental experience, cultural immersion, and existential confrontation.
Let’s explore how de Vere’s biography—particularly his Italian travels, education, and losses—could align with and illuminate the thematic evolution Spencer identified.
- De Vere’s Italian Sojourn and Cultural Exposure
Edward de Vere traveled extensively in Italy (1575–1576), staying in Venice, Padua, Florence, and likely Milan and Sicily. He was not a passive tourist—he was immersed in the Renaissance hotbed of art, philosophy, humanism, and performance.
Implications for the Shakespearean Arc:
- Renaissance Humanism as Lived Experience
- Italy offered de Vere direct exposure to the humanist ideals—Petrarch, Machiavelli, Castiglione—ideas that permeate the Shakespearean canon.
- This wasn’t just academic—it was lived cultural contrast: the rigid English court vs. the intellectual liberty and sophistication of Italian city-states.
- Plays like Othello, The Merchant of Venice, and Measure for Measure not only reflect Italian settings but internalize moral and psychological ambivalence—an Italianate sense of duplicity, sensuality, and paradox.
- Political and Religious Instability
- De Vere would have witnessed (or absorbed accounts of) confessional conflicts, political maneuvering, and corruption—especially in Venice and Rome.
- This realpolitik consciousness may have shaped the psychological and ethical tensions in Hamlet, Macbeth, and Julius Caesar, all of which present power as ambiguous, dangerous, and alluring.
- Personal Loss, Aging, and the Inner Shift
If we align the middle and late Shakespeare plays with de Vere’s aging process and eventual retreat from public life, a compelling emotional and philosophical pattern emerges.
Key Biographical Inflections:
- De Vere lost his father young, was raised at court, and became a ward of William Cecil, entering a world of performance, surveillance, and political manipulation.
- His marriage was strained, his reputation was marred by debt and scandal, and he lost a beloved son in infancy—all feeding the melancholy tone of later tragedies.
- Later in life, he became more reclusive and spiritual, reportedly writing “comedies” in private. His patronage of music and theater never ceased, suggesting a deeply personal engagement with the imaginative world.
III. De Vere as a Man Out of Time: An Existential View
One could argue that de Vere embodied the very transition Spencer describes:
- He was born into the residual medieval order (title, nobility, inherited place).
- He lived through the unraveling of metaphysical security—Elizabethan court politics, religious conflict, scientific awakening.
- He experienced the Renaissance ideal and its disillusionment—the promise of human grandeur tempered by human fallibility.
- His late-life quietude suggests a move toward forgiveness, renunciation, and poetic grace—just as Spencer saw in The Tempest or The Winter’s Tale.
“Every third thought shall be my grave,” says Prospero.
One wonders if de Vere, approaching his own quietude, let that line fall into his own mouth.
THE ESSAY:
Shakespeare, the Nature of Man, and the Shadow of Edward de Vere: A Philosophical Reappraisal
Theodore Spencer’s Shakespeare and the Nature of Man offers one of the most compelling frameworks for understanding the philosophical arc of Shakespeare’s oeuvre. Spencer does not treat Shakespeare as a static moralist but as a dramatist profoundly engaged in the intellectual transformations of the Renaissance. Central to his thesis is the idea that Shakespeare’s plays reflect an evolving conception of human nature—from one embedded in divine order to one wracked by inner fragmentation and, finally, reoriented toward renewal.
However, when we consider this arc in light of the Oxfordian view—that the true author of the works attributed to Shakespeare was Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford—a deeper and more biographically inflected reading becomes possible. De Vere’s life, marked by extensive travel in Italy, immersion in Renaissance culture, courtly turbulence, personal loss, and eventual withdrawal from public life, resonates with and perhaps even explains the internal evolution traced by Spencer. The speculative nature of the Shakespearean chronology—based more on performance and publication than composition—further supports the case for integrating life experience and philosophical growth into literary development.
- Spencer’s Arc: The Nature of Man Across the Plays
Spencer traces Shakespeare’s vision of man across three phases:
- The Ordered Universe:
Early plays such as Richard II reflect a medieval cosmology. Human beings are seen as parts of a divine hierarchy, and transgression results in cosmic disorder. Richard’s downfall is not only political but metaphysical—a rupture in ordained harmony. - Existential Crisis and Psychological Depth:
The great tragedies—Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth—represent a seismic shift. The old worldview falters. Man is now autonomous but divided, burdened by freedom, guilt, and alienation. Hamlet’s introspection, Lear’s descent, Macbeth’s ambition—all reflect the fragmentation of the self and the loss of transcendent structure. - Reconciliation and Grace:
The late romances—The Winter’s Tale, Cymbeline, The Tempest—introduce forgiveness, mystery, and healing. These are not returns to certainty, but gestures toward wholeness through humility, love, and spiritual openness.
Spencer sees this arc as Shakespeare’s philosophical response to the Renaissance crisis of meaning. Man is no longer simply part of a given order, but a creature of choice, suffering, and imagination.
- De Vere’s Life as Philosophical Ground
If we accept Edward de Vere as the true author of Shakespeare’s works, this philosophical arc becomes not only literary but existential. De Vere’s life follows a strikingly similar trajectory to the one Spencer outlines in the plays.
- Italian Influence and Humanist Culture
De Vere’s documented travels in Italy (1575–1576) exposed him to the flourishing Renaissance humanism of Venice, Padua, and Florence. He likely encountered the works of Machiavelli, Castiglione, and Petrarch—not as abstractions, but as living philosophies. This immersion in a sophisticated, politically nuanced culture informed the Italianate dramas (Othello, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing) with their worldly wit, duplicity, and psychological ambiguity. The plays’ settings, character types, and philosophical dilemmas feel more like lived experience than distant invention.
- Court Intrigue, Fall from Favor, and Personal Loss
De Vere’s early life as a nobleman placed him at the center of Elizabethan court politics—an environment rife with betrayal, competition, and image-making. His marriage deteriorated. He suffered financial decline. His reputation was bruised. He lost a son in infancy. This personal unraveling mirrors the psychological and moral crises of the tragic heroes—Hamlet’s bitterness, Othello’s insecurity, Lear’s blindness, and Macbeth’s fatal ambition may be seen not as invented psyches but as dramatized soul states.
- Withdrawal and Reconciliation
In later life, De Vere withdrew from the spotlight. He continued to write, according to some reports, and maintained connections to the theater world. His late plays—if we accept the Oxfordian view—bear the imprint of a man who has suffered and come through: Prospero’s renunciation, Leontes’s repentance, and Hermione’s miraculous return all echo a philosophical return to grace through humility. The arc closes not with certainty, but with acceptance and a deeper compassion for the human condition.
III. Rethinking Spencer with De Vere in View
Spencer’s philosophical reading of Shakespeare gains further nuance when reframed through de Vere’s authorship. The “evolution” of Shakespeare’s thought is not only literary but lived.
| Shakespearean Phase | Spencer’s Arc | De Vere’s Life |
| Early Comedies & Histories | Man in a Divinely Ordered World | Young de Vere at court, shaped by tradition and duty |
| Major Tragedies | Man as Fragmented, Burdened with Freedom | De Vere’s inner turmoil, courtly betrayal, personal loss |
| Late Romances | Forgiveness, Mystery, Reconciliation | De Vere’s retreat from public life, spiritual deepening |
This reading transforms Shakespeare from a near-mythical cipher to a deeply human author whose philosophical development parallels his life journey. The arc becomes not just a record of shifting ideas but of existential thresholds.
- Implications for Authorship, Time, and Selfhood
In this view, the plays become existential palimpsests—inscribed with the self-inquiry of a man contending with his age, his losses, and his inner divisions. The idea of Shakespeare as a single, coherent identity dissolves. What remains is a consciousness in motion—shaped by Italian humanism, English politics, grief, and philosophical imagination.
Such a reframing aligns closely with contemporary questions about identity, authorship, and the recursive nature of time. What if the plays are not timeless because they transcend history, but because they are saturated with it—compressed into dramatic form by a man who lived every paradox they portray?
Conclusion
Whether or not Edward de Vere was the true author of Shakespeare’s works, viewing the canon through the lens of his life reveals a powerful coherence with Theodore Spencer’s insights. The philosophical arc of the plays—from divine order through existential crisis to tentative reconciliation—mirrors the arc of a life lived under pressure, in exile, and ultimately in contemplation. In this light, Shakespeare becomes not only the great dramatist of the human condition, but a case study in how art transfigures life—how one man’s inner evolution became the world’s most enduring theatre.
📚 References & Sources
- Primary Texts by or Attributed to Shakespeare
- Shakespeare, William. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Ed. Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor. Oxford University Press, 2005.
- Shakespeare, William. Hamlet, King Lear, The Tempest, Richard II, Othello, Macbeth, The Winter’s Tale, Cymbeline. Various editions.
- Key Secondary Source
- Spencer, Theodore. Shakespeare and the Nature of Man. The Macmillan Company, 1942.
↳ The foundational text for this essay. Spencer traces the philosophical evolution of Shakespeare’s dramatic vision in relation to Renaissance thought.
- On Renaissance Context and Philosophy
- Tillyard, E. M. W. The Elizabethan World Picture. Chatto & Windus, 1943.
↳ Offers a vivid explanation of the hierarchical worldview dominant in early Shakespeare plays. - Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare. University of Chicago Press, 1980.
↳ Contextualizes the birth of individualism in Renaissance literature and drama. - Cassirer, Ernst. The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy. Harper Torchbooks, 1963.
↳ Provides philosophical background for Renaissance conceptions of order, freedom, and the human condition.
- On the Oxfordian Theory (Edward de Vere as Shakespeare)
- Anderson, Mark. Shakespeare by Another Name: The Life of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, the Man Who Was Shakespeare. Gotham Books, 2005.
↳ A detailed and compelling biography of de Vere, linking his life experiences to the Shakespearean corpus. - Ogburn, Charlton. The Mysterious William Shakespeare: The Myth and the Reality. EPM Publications, 1984.
↳ A cornerstone of the Oxfordian theory, arguing comprehensively for de Vere’s authorship. - Sobran, Joseph. Alias Shakespeare: Solving the Greatest Literary Mystery of All Time. Free Press, 1997.
↳ A concise and accessible case for the Oxfordian view, including analysis of themes and timelines. - Oxfordian.org & ShakespeareOxfordFellowship.org
↳ Online repositories of scholarly articles, timeline reconstructions, and source comparisons supporting de Vere’s authorship.
- On Italy’s Influence in the Plays
- Roe, Richard. The Shakespeare Guide to Italy: Retracing the Bard’s Unknown Travels. Harper Perennial, 2011.
↳ A fascinating work detailing how accurate Shakespeare’s Italian settings are—suggesting firsthand knowledge. - Whittemore, Hank. The Monument: “Shake-Speare’s Sonnets” by Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Meadow Geese Press, 2005.
↳ Connects the Sonnets to biographical events in de Vere’s life, particularly during and after his Italian journey.